Friday, 22 November 2013

Oopsatoreum Exhibition, Sydney, from December 7

One of many Mintox inventions, both imaginary and real

This exhibition is my second collaboration with Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, following the successful weirdness of 2009's Odditoreum, with which I was invited to write fake histories for various strange objects found in the vast museum basement. This project takes a different tack, being a more cohesive survey of the work of one Henry
Archibald Mintox – an inventor so ahead of his time he could only be fictional and, by his own account, grossly unrecognised. The exhibition will feature actual
mechanical inventions from the Powerhouse archive, re-imagined as
creations by Henry A. Mintox, and with accompanying text from the previously published book, The Oopsatoreum: inventions of Henry A Mintox.

Aside from being fun, a deeper concept behind the project involves the importance of play in creativity and technical advancement, raising the important question: is success necessarily a measure of true originality?

Unfortunately not, sorry about that. I'm not traveling much these days, but I'll post about any appearances if that changes. For those who can't make the exhibition, the book is a good substitute, it has all the objects and their 'histories'.